Recognizing Email Scams

Scanning your email inbox is a matter of cleaning out the scams, and the actual messages.  Being able to spot the scams is essential for everyone.  This way you avoid the risks of email identity theft, and protect yourself.  Not to mention, it helps you clean out your inbox and spam folders very quickly.

First, look at the subject line.  Oftentimes a scam will be aimed towards scaring you into immediate action.  Usually featuring capitalized letters, and with an urgent message that’s vague or unfamiliar to you.  This is a tactic where ID thieves try to frighten you into taking rash action.  Usually by threatening the closure of a bank account or loan.  Anything that gets you to give out personal information as quickly as possible.

Another way to tell the legitimacy of these ‘urgent’ messages is whether or not you’re mentioned by name.  Usually the identity thief is unaware of your name, so they will use generalized references.  Like writing “Account holder” in reference to your personal accounts, instead of your name.  If this were actually from your bank, they would know your name.  So that’s always a sure sign.

Check the sender’s email address.  Sometimes thieves will try and spoof real email addresses, but in most cases they won’t waste the time.  If the sender is from a free email address, like Yahoo, AOL, Gmail, etc, it’s most likely a scam.

Finally, skim to see the information that they are requiring you to give.  A real institution will often ask you for very little, perhaps just your name.  But an identity thief asks for everything from your social security number, to your address and even bank account numbers.  Anything asking for information like that is guaranteed to be a scam.  So don’t fall into that trap, and never give out that sort of personal information through email.